ABH 



73 



>2 P3 

>py 1 





onBoistorn 





The Park Square Station of the Boston antl Providence Railroad. 

Built in 1873, it was by law "abandoned for railroad purposes" September. 1S99. 
of signs there is none indicating that the estate or any part of it is for sale. 



A BLIGHT ON BOSTON 



HOW SHALL IT BE REMOVED? 



Not for the theorist, however ingenious, nor tor the atter din- 
ner speaker, however entertaining, but for the man who, by his 
handhng of what he has accumulated, has shown that he knows 
the difference between saleable goods and dead stock, between the 
active dollar and the dividend in bankruptcv, are intended these 
comments on a "Blight on Boston." 

John Albree. 
3 I State Street 
November 15, 1906. 



ilbr BriUrlni JJrrBH 

U'7 Federal St. 
Boston 



f-^ 



? 



.f^^ 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 80 1906 

. Cewrleht, Entry , 

cuss A XXC.NO. 

/ <-/ «r a 2. 

COPY B. 



(C()PYR1GHT1906, BY JOHN ALRREE.) 



The Idle Land. 

So accustomed have we become to the sight of the abandoned railroad 
property in Park Stiuare, that its future is seldom a matter of inquiry, ^\'e 
now take the continuance of this condition as a matter of course. And so, 
before considering a solution of the problem presented in the continued 
abandonment of the land, formerly used for railroad purposes by the Boston 
and Providence Railroad, it is needful that some clear conception be ob- 
tained of the vastness of the area that, since September, 1899, has been and 
still is idle and uni)ro(hu-tive. 

It is true that the buildings ha\e of late years been occujjied by auto- 
mobile dealers and by a roller skating rink, but no one can allow himself to 
think that the annual rentals from all sources can yield S 7 2,000, the taxes 
for the current year, or that the income for the seven years last past has been 
$400,000, the amount of taxes assessed on it during that time. Mean- 
while the cai)ital locked up in the land has earned nothing toward interest 
charges. Hence the property is rightly called idle and unprodu(ti\e. 

Large Area of the Abandoned Land. 

The building of a roadway in place of the old Berkeley Street bridge 
divided the tract into two unequal parts, that with the old station, triangular 
in shape, contains 453,427 square feet, while that between Berkeley and Clar- 
endon Streets contains 270,300 scjuare feet. These figures by themselves give 
one but little idea of the size of the tract which expressed in acres is 1 6.6 1 . But 
if one has pointed out an area of about the same size, though of ilitTerent 
shape, he will readily comprehend its vastness and form a conception of its 
possibilities for development. 

For instance, suppose a fire were to start at the corner of Washington 
Street and Temple Place and sweep southward, making a ruin of the entire 
area between Washington and Tremont Streets and Temple Place and Boyls- 
ton Street. Then suppose the flames were to leap across to the Hotel Pelham 
and continue to spread so that, in addition to the area just outlined, there 
was included in the ruin that between Boylston and Eliot Streets and Tremont 
Street and Park Sciuare, then the total area thus supposedly devastated, in- 
cluding also the area of the streets in this district, would contain about a^ 



much surface* as the abandoned railroad land, which by the way is just across 
the street from where this district ends and for which it is a natural and logi- 
cal outlet for growth due to congestion. 

Again, the acreage included in this railroad land is more than a quarter 
as large as the area covered l)y the Great Fire of 1872. Did it take seven 
vears for signs of development in that devastated area? No, not seven weeks 
even. The private owners who had the interest and taxes to pay, saw to it 
that buildings were speedily erected and that tenants were found so that an 
income might be assured. 

Now the devastation of the Park Square land was none the less complete, 
though it was caused, not by fire, but by an act of the Legislature in 1896 
which directed that, after the South and Back Bay Stations were built, the 
Providence Railroad should "abandon the use of its present station in Park 
Square for railroad purposes." Even if more time had then been given to a 
careful consideration of that act, it is doubtful if it would have occurred to 
any that on this abandonment the land would or could have remained idle 
for seven long years, an injury to the community. 

Extent and Effect of the Blight. 

The map on the cover presents fairly in graphic form how far reaching 
is this "Blight on Boston." The shaded area is that toward which the city 
is bound to grow, but at which it halts because of the uncertainty as to the 
development of the big tract. 

To understand this, consider first the wonderful growth to the west on 
Boylston Street. How can this be shown better than by the increase in as- 
sessed values? Between Park Square and Berkeley Street the average rate of 
increase per si]uare foot from 1896 to 1906 has been 60 per cent. This 
has but one interpretation, namely, the tide of business with its demand for 
more room has surged out Boylston Street and a new city is being built, con- 
nected with the older shopping district by a block but 1 20 feet deep, having 
the Public Ciarden on one side and the abandoned land on the other. The 
tendency of such a tide is to flow toward the side as well as straight forward. 
The Public Garden of course offers no outlet, so the pressure against the 
opposite side of the street is all the stronger. 

Take what would be natural channels for side currents from Boylston 
Street, and from what has already happened, one can see the strength of this 
side pressure. One instance is found at Church Street at the Thorndike 
Hotel. The land on which the Thorndike stands was assessed in 1896 at 

*AccordinK to the assessment books the abandoned land contains 723,727 square feet and in the area in 
theory fire swept, are assessed 631,447 square feet. To this add 90,000 square feet for the surface of streets 
included, West, Avery, Mason and Carver Streets, Boylston Place and the many courts and alleys, and the 
result is 721,447 square feet. 



$35 P^f stinare foot and today it is ,^48, while the drug store on the o|>])Osite 
corner of Boylston and Church Streets has had its vahiation advanced in the 
same time from $42 to ;>S5. IJetween this estate and Providence, Street is a 
building that was formerly used as a hotel when the station was occupied. , 
The assessed value of this has been advanced from $20 to S35. This rise in- 
dicates plainly that the tide of business would sweep through Church Street, 
if it could. But it is stopped by the empty station, silent and gloomy. 

By way of contrast take the corners of the same Church Street at Colum- 
bus Avenue, just across the station site, and we find that during the same ten 
years the assessments have fallen from S14.25 to S12.50 and from S14 to 
$13 per square foot respectively. 




The /Abandoned rassen<,rer and Freij,'ht Stations as 
Providence Streets. 

The building material at the left 
completion, indicating the demand foi 



for the new I'.erkeley 
m in the neiuhborhood. 



n from tlie corner of Berkeley and 

ildinu' into which tenants moved before its 



One more instance of the pressure for room for business will suffice. .At 
the corner of Boylston and Berkeley Streets there has been erected the new 
Berkeley Building and into it tenants moved before the workmen had left, so 
great was the demand for room. This land was assessed in 1896 at $17.50 
per square foot while now it is at the rate of $40 per foot. Yet just across 
Providence Street which including the space for sidewalks is but forty feet in 
width, is the vacant land surrounded here with a high board fence bearing 
two signs indicating that away back in the desert which the fence encloses are 
two automobile stations. In short the tide of business is surging with great 
force against this vacant land and is repelled. Why? 

5 



But it is said that there is a movement outTremont Street, and that this 
shaded area can depend on that for development of the territory. But if one 
will talk with those who have estates in the shaded area, he will quickly find 
that they do not feel safe in investing in improvements until they can know 
with some degree of certainty how the railroad land is to be utilized. The 
fear has been repeatedly expressed that this abandoned land may be used for 
cheap apartment houses and, they say, if that is to be the case, it will not pay 
for them to improve. This feeling was much in evidence when the petition, 
hereafter mentioned, was circulated in which the Railroad Commission was 
asked to consider the question of this abandoned land. At the same time 
however it was found that there have been from time to time during the years 
of the land's idleness bright minds at work who appreciated that vacant land, 
stretching away from a block such as that from Park Square to Berkeley Street 
where the assessed values are from $^^ to $85 per foot, has attractive possi- 
bilities. 

Can it be that the reason the land is still idle is to be found in the own- 
ership and the peculiar privileges attendant thereon? 

Ownership ot the Abandoned Land. 

The old print here reproduced,* shows the condition of the territory in 
1839. How the old millpond was filled, the land reclaimed, stations built 
and rebuilt and nearly the entire cost charged against surplus income, is an 
interesting phase of the subject, but hardly pertinent to discuss now. None 
of the tract was taken by right of eminent domain. All was bought and paid 
for by the Providence Railroad. After the abandonment for railroad pur- 
poses, the portion west of Clarendon Street was sold for additional buildings 
of the Institute of Technology, for the laying out of Trinity Place and for the 
new Albany Station at that point, thus cutting off any probability of there 
being in the future a connection with the railway line. 

But, though the tract was owned by the Providence Railroad, the con- 
trol has been and still is in the New Haven Railroad through successive 
leases. The Providence Railroad in April 1888 leased! to the Old Colony 
Railroad its railroad and everything therewith connected, except its cash, 
receivables and account books, the rental being $400,000 a year for the 
stockholders and $10,000 for preserving the organization. The Old Colony 
agreed in addition to pay the interest on the indebtedness of the Providence 
Railroad and all taxes assessed on its property. 

As to the real estate the Providence Railroad agreed, upon written re- 
quest of the Old Colony Railroad to convey to such persons as the Old Col- 
ony Railroad might appoint, real estate not required for railroad purposes, 

*PaKe 13. 

tReport R. R. Com. Jan. 1SS9, p. 469. 



"but the lessor [the Providence] shall not be obliged, unless its directors 
consent, to convey any of its real estate east of the present Dartmouth Street 
bridge." 

When in March 1S93 the Old Colony leased* to the Xew Haven Rail- 
road all its property, except its corporate seal, the stockholders' and directors' 
record books and the transfer and stock books, the rights and the obligations 
under the Providence lease to the Old Colony passed also to the New Haven 
so that the care, management and control of the abandoned land was with 
the Xew Haven Railroad, becoming absolute in May 1904 when it took title 
to the entire tract east of Clarendon Street, together with a few lots at the 
South End, which need not be now specified. 

Regarding this transfer the president of the New York, New Haven and 
Hartford Railroad in his report to his stockholders in September, 1904 said : 
"For the purpose of adjusting accounts with the Boston and 
Providence Railroad Corporation growing out of the exten- 
sion of its line to the South Terminal Station, this company 
has taken title to the real estate vacated for railroad purposes 
owned by that corporation in the City of lioston, known as the 
Park S(|uare property, and has given credit, on account, in the 
sum of S5, 1 20,000. the estimated value of the same. Sales of 
this property will be made from time to time for tJic purpose 
of rcinibursiu'^ this company for advances made on account of 
this construction." 
Does this mean that only such "sales of this ])ro[)erty will l)e made 
from time to time" as are necessary to reimburse the company, and that the 
balance of the land will be held indefinitely? Does the New Haven Railroad 
plan to speculate in Boston real estate? 

Note that it is two years and more since this report of pro])Osed sales was 
made and now,notwithstanding various rumors thatat intervals obtain currency, 
some even in the daily press accompanied with plans and details elaborately 
worked out, the land was on June 30, 1906 still in possession and ownership of 
the New Haven Railroad as is shown by its annual report for the year ending 
June 30, 1906. Furthermore an inspection of the Suffolk deeds shows that 
no transfer of any part of this land has since been recorded. In fact the 
only transfer of any of the land east of Clarendon Street was one of 367 
square feet in 1902 to straighten a boundary. Otherwise the boundaries of 
the tract remain as they were when the land was abandoned seven years 
ago. Why is it? 

Can In(]uiry be Made? 
But what right has an individual, or any number of individuals, or even 
the general public, to raise a question as to the handling of land which, it 

*Report R. R. Com. Jan. 1S93, p. 5S0. 



has already been stated, the Boston and Providence Railroad bought and 
paid for, and which it sold to the New Haven Railroad in settlement of a 
debt? Is it not an unwarrantal)le interference in a railroad's jjrivate busi- 
ness? By no means, for it is not unwarranted and it is not an inter- 
ference at all. It is a right and a duty that every thinking man in the com- 
munity owes to himself and the community where his interests are, to assert 
and insist that the conduct of a railroad in its smallest detail is a matter of 
public interest, of public concern. 

A railroad has no private business. An eminent railroad lawyer has 
stated, "The foundation of all the railroad law I know is this, a railroad is a 
public highway." Has a public highway any private business? 




The Abandoned Land as seen looking West from the Tenney Building, 40 Columbus Avenue. 



No part of the area, 723,000 square feet, shown in these two views, 
can be reached the 1,250,000 people living witliin a radius of 15 miles 
conditions? And yet the land lias been idle seven years. 



over 500 feet from trolley lines by which 
What possibilities are susgested l^y such 



Again, a president of a New England railroad is quoted recently as hav- 
ing said that "a railroad lives by a tax on the community." There is no 
need to raise a question as to whether or not he made this statement, for it 
is recognized that, with the grant of a charter of a railroad, goes also the 
power to fix the charges which that community must pay for the transporta- 
tion of its people and its freight, and herein is the tax on the community. 

This is not Turkey or China, where taxes are laid without the voice or 
the consent of the taxed. The tea was thrown into our Boston Harbor in 
support of the doctrine that the taxed shall have their say about the need of 
a tax, how it shall be raised and what shall be done with it when it is raised. 



But it is unnec-essaiy to enter on a discussion of the relations of railroads 

and their doings and the public in view of the deluge poured on us in the last 

twelve months touching rate regulation. 

'J'he result to be ex]:)ected from such a long continued public discussion 

is well summed uj) in an editorial in the Springfield Republican, October 27, 

1 905 as follows : 

"A man who, at this late day can not or will not perceive 
a radical difference between a naturally monopolistic business 
like railroad transportation, and a business where competition 
actually or potentially enters as a governing principle, is too 
ignorant or too opinionated to be worth much attention." 




The Abandoned Passenger .Station and Land as seen looking North from the Teniu y I'uilding, 
40 Cohimbus Avenue. 

The buildings on Boylston Street, seen over the roof of the disused station, are on land which carries such 
high assessments per foot as $40, $G0. and even $85: valuations which are based on the urgent demand for busi- 
ness locations. And yet this adjacent territory has not earned even its taxes for seven years. 

This is Strong doctrine brietly stated and it must l)e here cited, for it 
will be asserted again, as it has been already in connection with this Park 
Square question, that to raise an inquiry as to the railroad's handling of this 
abandoned land or in any way to comment on a railroad's conduct of its 
business is "socialistic, anarchistic," for such at present are the most con- 
demnatory epithets in certain vocabularies. As to its being revolutionary in 
its character, an inquiry into, and a protest against, the continuance of this 
"Blight on Boston" is, on the contrary, within the legal and the uioral rights 
of each citizen of this entire community. 



The Public Pavs. 

A railroad has the right and the duty to earn a fair return on the capital 
invested in its business. But if the charges on that capital are increased by 
carrying for years this dead, unproductive land which by the act of 1896 can 
not be used for railroad purposes and which under the system of handling 
does not earn its keep, who is to pay the $300,000 a year, more or less, 
which is required for interest at 5*/^' on the five million here locked* up and 
the taxes, $70,000 a year? Against this charge the present income may be 
credited, but still $300,000 is not far from a fair estimate of the annual 
charge. Charge on whom ? 




Six acres between Berkeley Street on the right and Clarendon Street en the left as seen from 
the roof of the Youth's Companion Building. 

Is it not a trifle extravagant, not to say wasteful, to use this city lot, assessed at #1,299,000, solely as a dem- 
onstration track for automobiles? 

Here again the difference between public service corporation and a 
private business into which competition enters, is apparent. How does a 
private land owner handle his property, assuming that among his holdings 
is one piece that, like this, does not earn its interest and taxes? Suppose 
that he has three others which are yielding him a fair return. When at the 
end of the year this individual counts his profits, he will, if he is honest with 
himself, (and the man who deceives himself as to his finances is fatuous in- 
deed,) subtract from the income of the three productive pieces the cost of 
carrying the unproductive piece. Furthermore if he attempts to get any 

* The New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad is reported borrowing $1,000,000 for two years at 
5 per cent. — Boston Herald, Xoreinber /j, ii)ot>. 



more from his three iKoductive i)ieces on the griMind that his fourth piece is 
an expense, his tenants will leave him, for here the principle of competition 
enters. He will have to continue to ])lace the cost of the unproductive piece 
on the three income producing, or else he must i)ut the fourth at work. 

Now, how does a railroad handle its unproductive real estate, such as 
this in Park Square? It has already been stated that a railroad has the right 
and the duty to earn a fair return, hut how is this return calculated? Its 
rates are based first on those expenses which are fixed and unvarying, namely 
the interest on its indebtedness and its taxes. The expenses for maintenance 
and operation vary with the amount of the business which is more or less 
uncertain. 

No rate regulator, however rabid or radical, would think of questioning 
the fi.xed charges. His points of attack are the salaries paid the officials, the 
dividends paid and perhaps, if he is persistent, the charges for running the 
road. The interest on the bonds he would not touch, for he recognizes that 
there is a contract involved. I'he taxes he would be glad to see larger, for 
the city or the state gets them. But it is in these fixed charges that the cost 
of carrying this large tract is concealed. .And as rates are raised, when the 
fixed charges are increased, and these rates the public ])ays, then it is the 
public that is paying the cost of carrying this abandoned land and not the 
stockholders. Or if rates are not raised to secure the wherewithal to pay the 
added interest or taxes, needed repairs on the road or the equipment are de- 
ferred so that the community is paying for inferior service, and thus in either 
case the public pays the cost. 

If it were the stockholders who paid, then the railroad would keep its 
books in the same manner as does an individual, deducting from its profits 
for the vear this $300,000, the cost of the unproduc^tive ])iece. The result 
would be that the dividends would be decreased in the following manner : — ■ 
The New Haven Railroail has for years paid 2')',. quarterly on S8o,ooo,ooo, 
recently increased to $83,354,600, and each holder of 100 shares has received 
during the seven years of the land's idleness his check for S200 every three 
months. But if the cost of carrying this land had been put on the stockholders, 
then for three of the quarterly payments his check would have been still $200, 
but for the fourth it would have been $162.50, the assessment of the $300,000 
on the dividend making that difference in the payment. How many times 
would such an incident have been repeated? Would not the demand from 
the stockholders have been so decided that the land would long since have 
been put to its proper and normal use, instead of its having been all these 
years a menace and a blight? 

But as the public pays the cost and does not appreciate it, the land re- 
mains abandoned to the chug-chug of the auto and the whir-r of the roller 



skate. Surely the time has come when this condition should cease, for it 
burdens the people, checks enterprise and stunts the growth of Boston. 

What can be done about it? Some one of at least five courses is open. 

1st. We Can Wait. 

It has been said that to ask the railroad to do something, or anything, 
savors too much of impetuous haste. To one making such a statement, it 
means little that it is ten years since the railroad people knew that the land 
would have to be "abandoned for railroad purposes," as the act of 1896 
directed, or that it is seven years since the actual abandonment. If these 




itis as seen from 



roof of the Technology Buildings, 



The Abandoned Land? 
Trinity Place. 

Seventy years ae;o this 16 2-3 acres was part of a niillpond. If, when the railroad left in 1S99, this space had 
reverted to its original condition of mud and water, is it conceivable that it would have so remained for seven 
years? Since however it is ready for building purposes, why allow the present desert to be continued at a cost 
of $1000 a day? 

facts are called to his attention, he will reply, "It is a large proposition to 
market ly acres of city property in one lump." But it will be noted however 
that he will carefully refrain from giving an estimate as to the length of time 
he would deem proper within which some signs should appear of a fixed and 
definite purpose to use the capital locked up in the idle land. 

Is not this policy of a "wait-a-bit" too much like that of the optimistic 
Micawber, "Oh, something will turn up?" The community has now waited 
seven long years, has paid the cost and in addition has received less taxes by 
reason of deceased values in the territory adjacent. 

The time has arrived when inaction must give way to action, when 
something must "be turned up." 

12 



2nd. The Citv Can Buv the Land. 

Frequently when the vacant tract is a subject of conversation, it is ])ro- 
posed that a solution of the problem may be found in the city's taking it for 
some public improvement or other, such as a city hall, a market or a park. 
But if the reasons for this suggestion are sought, it will be found that they 
spring from a notion, more or less indefinite, that because the tract is large 
the city is best adapted to undertake a solution of the problem as to how to 
stoj) this waste. This is somewhat the same line of reasoning the woman 
advanced who said she "married a man to get rid of him." 

'I'hat not even one of the reckless political financiers whose schemes are 




The above shoivs the appearance of Boston as seen from the south-west, near the intersection of the Provi- 
dence and Worcester Railroads; the State House with is towering- dome, and the Common appear in the 
ce?itral part. Bunker Hill Monument is seen on the extreme left. -^Frontispiece of Barber's Historical Col- 
lections of Massachusetts, iS^g. 

Bunker Hill Monument was then being erected. The small square buildinu toward which, the train in the 
foreground is speeding, was the first Providence station and stood near the jjresent site of the Kmancipation 
Statue in Park Square. 

legion, has seriously suggested that the city take this land, indicates that the 
plan is out of the (juestion, for even such recognize that what the city needs 
is not opportunities for larger expenditure of taxes collected, but o])portuni- 
ties to collect larger taxes from improvements on properties at present un- 
developed, such as the tract under consideration. The acquisition of this 
five million dollar tract of vacant land by the city would involve the spending 
of at least five million more in buildings, and the city is in no condition to 
stand the withdrawal of ten million from taxation. 

Let the tract be developed along normal lines for private purposes with 
buildings for business and manufacturing, and it will return in taxes a much 
larger sum than could be assessed on it in its present waste and undeveloped 



condition. There has been and there still is a demand for this land. Almost 
every real estate broker of standing in Boston has at some time or other made 
overtures on behalf of a client for portions of this land, and the fact that none 
of it has been sold, in spite of this demand, is a matter for thoughtful consid- 
eration by Boston men. A proper and natural use is for business purposes. 
Wliy not move to that end? 

3rd. Appeal to the Railroad Commission. 

It may occur to some one to ask if the holding of vacant land to the 
detriment of the community is within the rights and privileges granted to a 
railroad, or within the duties a railroad assumes towards the public. An ap- 
peal to the Railroad Commissioners comes into one's mind, for he remem- 
bers that this Commission was presumably created to entertain such inquiries. 
This course has been attempted and the meagre result is outlined below. 

The subject of the abandoned land was brought before the Commission 
in a petition, dated November 29, 1905, closing as follows : — 

"Your petitioners therefore request your Honorable Board in 
your next annual report to the Legislature to incor- 
porate such suggestions as to the enactment of new law, or the 
enforcement by the Commonwealth of existing law (if such be 
deemed adequate) to the end that this public service corpor- 
ation may be compelled to put this great tract of land into the 
market for normal development for the benefit of its stock- 
holders, of the travelling public and of the community in 
which the land lies." 
This petition was signed by "taxpayers and landowners in Boston" rep- 
resenting neighboring estates of a total assessed value of $4,000,000, all of 
which have suffered by reason of the condition of the land. To this petition 
the Chairman of the Commission replied under date of December 12, 1905 
in part as follows : — 

"If it should appear that a railroad company was improperly 
holding real estate to the detriment of the community, the 
Board ought to take action as you suggest under the statute* to 
which you call attention .... We are assured that the prop- 
erty will be sold at an early day, the attempt to dispose of it 
as a whole having been abandoned and an arrangement 
made to plat it into lots and so better meet market conditions. 
In the light of this information it could not be said that the 
company is at present holding this property improperly." 
Was the Railroad Commission satisfied that there was sufiicient exig- 
ency to warrant the New Haven Railroad in taking "title to the real estate 

*Revised Laws Chap. Ill, sec. 11. 

14 



vacated for railroad ])urposes?" Are we to understand that that Commission 
is restricted in its incjuiry to the question how long may the New Haven 
Railroad hold real estate which it has not accjuired for the |)uri)oses for which 
the road was chartered? 

Again, on December 12, 1905 the Railroad Commission, in al)ru])tly 
dismissing the petition of $4,000,000 of neighboring property, said "We are 
assured that the property will be sold at an early day, the attem])t to dispose 
of it as a whole having been abandoned. ..." The President of the New 
Haven Railroad in his report to his stockholders on September 21, 1904, 
said, "Sales of this property will be made from time to time for the purjjose 
of reimbursing the company for advances made. ..." 

Now that Commission took as a basis for the dismissal of the petition an 
assurance of the New Haven Railroad, (made for the purpose of defeating 
this petition?) which was diametrically opposed to the deliberate policy of the 
railroad, declared by its president to its stockholders only fourteen months 
before. 

Another appeal can be made to the Railroad Commission.* 

4th. Appeal to the Legislature and the Courts. 

The matter of this continued holding of the abandoned land can be 
brought to the attention of the Legislature and the Courts, and it may then 
take a course similar to that adopted in the case of the street railway 
merger. Vour lawyer can advise you as to this. 

5th. United Action by Men of Boston. 

Occasionally the men of Boston unitedly express themselves through 
their business associations, boards and clubs, and when they are moved to 
this united action in a cause in which public interest and welfare is para- 
mount, their voice is heard and heeded. By this power thus exerted were 
the tracks removed from Tremont Street, the insurance rates under the lead 
of Robert M. Burnett were reduced, the capitalization of the Boston gas 
companies was put on a more equitable basis through the efforts of E. R. 

*Mayor John F. Fitzgerald, in his message read before the joint session of the ISoard ot Aldermen 
and Common Council January 1, 1906 alluded to this Park Square question as follows: 

The location of Boston, in the northeastern corner of the United States, and its position with reference 
to, and its business relations with, the city of New York, the great commercial center of the country, make 
its railroad connections to the West and to the South, a matter of vital importance. It is very unfortunate 
for Boston that the ownership of the great railroad system, connecting her with New York, the New York, 
New Haven and Hartford Railroad, has passed so completely under the control of capitalists outside of 
Massachusetts that we are scarcely represented in its management or considered in its policies. ..... 

The persistent disregard by the management of the above named corporation, not only of the interests 
of Boston, but of those of its own stockholders, is shown by the fact that it has for six years allowed the 
va'uable terminals of the Boston and Providence Railroad, comprising over si.xteen acres in the heart of the 
city, to stand idle, to the great damage of all adjacent property. 

It is an abuse of its powers for a railroad to hold so long unused property originally acquired for 
railroad purposes only, and which it has no right to retain for any other purpose. 

1 intend, if necessary, to invoke the authority of the Railroad Commission to see if this injury to the 
property interests of the city cannot be terminated. 

15 



Warren and his associates, and at present it is again being exerted to 
condemn an improper site for appraisers' stores. In all these matters the 
interest of the public, the general public, was the first and the chief con- 
sideration. The individual could not profit by himself ; the gain must accrue 
first to the whole i)ublic and then the individuals would share in proportion 
as their particular interests were afifected. If private gain had been fore- 
most, the men of Boston would have recognized the situation and would 
have refused to lend their aid. Is not that aid imperatively called for in the 
matter of the continued abandonment of this land? 

One man can not act for the general public ; four millions of real estate 
receives merely the reply that the New Haven Railroad "meditates and pon- 
ders" but if the men of Boston, and that phrase has two hundred and fifty years 
of history in it, shall unitedly say that the time has come for stopping the ex- 
travagant waste incident to the continuance of this desert in the heart of the 
city, reasonable, practicable plans will be formulated, signs will be posted 
indicating a definite purpose, and the land will enter on a process of devel- 
opment. 

Therefore, 

Let each man who believes that the continuance of the conditions in 
and about the abandoned Providence station is an injury without any re- 
deeming features, see to it that his commercial, financial or professional 
organization shall consider this matter, and shall then take formal action ex- 
pressive of its demand that the wasteful conditions be terminated. 

All the time however bear in mind that for each business day there is 
collected and set aside for the continuance of the desert in the heart of a 
great city, 

|i,ooo a Dav. 



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NOV MISOli 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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